


Touch

by AggressiveWhenStartled



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Aversion to touch, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:30:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AggressiveWhenStartled/pseuds/AggressiveWhenStartled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson was having a very. Trying. Day.</p><p>Sherlock had been a ball of snapping, squirming eels the entire afternoon. Nothing would cajole him out of his strop, not even corpses, but if John turned his attention to anything other than His Sulkiness, Sherlock made exasperated sounds and flailed at things that he wanted fetched. Unfortunately, if John complied, Sherlock would just look put out and fling whatever it was John handed him against the wall or, memorably, through the closed window. </p><p>After he learned his lesson the first time and refused to fetch anything else, Sherlock just threw everything already within reach into the kitchen after him instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> So I have no idea what the rating on this should be, honestly. Let me know if I messed up in the comments!
> 
> UPDATE: So I'm a liar about adding to this. I updated the Loosed Reins sequel instead. I'm sorry. I'm a bad person.

Sherlock Holmes was having a very trying day.

There hadn’t been a case in _forever_ , nothing for literally _days_ , and everything was horrible and awful and how did normal people _live_ like this? He hated his experiments, he hated the flat, he hated the police, and he’d made his feelings very clear to everyone he’d encountered. Lestrade had hung up halfway through his poorly-timed phone call, Mrs Hudson was hiding out in her kitchen, and John was trying and failing to pretend Sherlock did not exist.

He tugged the blue silk dressing gown (that he hated) tighter around himself, twisted to face the back of the couch (that he hated), and thumped the cushion a few times to make it more comfortable (gratifying, since he hated it). 

He especially hated that John wasn’t paying him the least bit of attention. Here he was, _miserable_ , here he was _languishing_ in this dreadful, blackened world without a single thing to occupy his thoughts, his mind chasing itself around his head and his stomach restlessly twisting in on his spine, and John was just sitting in his chair drinking his tea looking positively peaceful and at ease with the horrible, boring afternoon.

Sherlock really did try to remind himself John had been paying him attention all day. John had started by offering him tea (he didn’t want tea), then toast (he didn’t want any toast). He’d invited Sherlock to go out somewhere with him (he didn’t want to go anywhere) then suggested they turn on the telly so he could yell at it (Sherlock hadn’t wanted to watch any television). 

When John had, out of desperation, suggested they head to the morgue, Sherlock had been tempted, and John’s face had cleared, relieved. It had infuriated Sherlock so much that he had decided he hated the morgue and everything that it contained (dead bodies, generally, which he now hated, unless they had died interestingly and _none of them had_ ).

But each time he’d just wanted John to _leave him alone_. The sound of John’s voice had enraged him, and John’s inane, insipid ideas to pass the time or cheer Sherlock up had been grating, intrusive, insufferable. John had finally taken the hint and buggered off, which was beyond maddening because Sherlock hated being ignored even more than being harried. 

***

John Watson was having a very. Trying. Day.

Sherlock had been a ball of snapping, squirming eels the _entire afternoon_. Nothing would cajole him out of his sulk, not even fresh corpses, and when he’d finally talked Lestrade into including them on a case, _any case_ , Sherlock had ripped the poor man to shreds for suggesting they involve themselves in such a ludicrously simple crime.

Sherlock didn’t want John anywhere near him but didn’t want John’s attention or presence anywhere else, either. If he touched Sherlock on the shoulder, the man flailed violently as though beset by angry bees, but if John turned his attention to anything other than His Sulkiness, Sherlock would make exasperated sounds, moan his name and smack at things just out of his reach that he wanted fetched. If John complied, Sherlock would look put out and fling whatever it was John handed him against the wall or, on one memorable occasion, through the closed window. After he learned his lesson and refused to fetch anything else, Sherlock just threw everything within his reach into the kitchen after him instead. Fortunately he’d run out of projectiles, and the overgrown toddler was currently sulking in a ball on the sofa. John slumped, exhausted, into his chair and attempted to read the newspaper.

Oh well. It wouldn’t be a Tuesday without Sherlock bellowing at him for letting his fringe grow too loudly.

Sherlock started sighing. Repeatedly. At length. After about fifteen minutes of the vocal equivalent of water torture, John finally threw down his newspaper and glared at Sherlock, who looked at him balefully over his shoulder before turning away with a huff.

John had had enough. “Look,” he exploded, “do you want me to pay attention to you or do you want me to leave you alone? _Pick one_.”

Sherlock only scowled at him and started tearing at the seams of the sofa cushions, shredding the stitching and flinging the stuffing about him like tufts of snow.

“Are you—Sherlock, stop that!” John yanked the cushion away from Sherlock, and when the Consulting Sulk latched on to another one John simply lost his frayed, long-tested temper.

“You insufferable, oversized horror, _get away from our cushions_ ,” John hissed, gripped Sherlock under his arms and heaved. 

Sherlock went _insane_.

If he had flailed frantically before, now Sherlock was a kicking, biting, scratching fury, thrashing like a wet cat dropped spitting into a sack. He was so livid that John couldn’t even make sense of what was being shouted at him, but what he could understand was absolutely filthy. A lucky swipe smashed the lamp against the floorboards, and a frenzied kick almost broke John’s knee. 

“Jesus, calm down!” John spun Sherlock and wrapped the man’s arms around himself, holding his wrists from behind, pressing Sherlock up against the wall and hoping the plaster and paint could take whatever Sherlock would do next. Possibly gnaw on it. “Stop smashing our flat up and I’ll let go!”

Sherlock snarled, jerked, and gasped out, “safeword.”

John dropped him immediately. Sherlock shot from the lounge to his room and slammed the door shut.

***

Sherlock’s skin _crawled_ , he wanted to claw it off; it prickled and twitched wherever his clothes brushed against it. He peeled them off desperately, flinging them away with a shudder, and crawled naked into bed where he coiled back up under the covers in a miserable ball of raw nerves.

Everything was awful. Sherlock hated it all.

It didn’t make sense. It didn’t even make _sense_ , he _loved it_ when John touched him. He would take any excuse offered, and would routinely manufacture them if needed, in order to brush up just too close against the doctor at every opportunity. Standing behind him and reaching around to fetch the sugar, pressing against him in a hiding space when he knew full well no criminals were nearby, looming close enough that he was breathing the same air when he explained his latest discovery—and that was only when others were present. In private…

Sherlock had initiated an intimate relationship with John months ago partly out of curiosity and partly out of genuine interest, but mostly for an excuse to curl up against John’s bare skin without him tensing up in a panicked platonic/not-platonic dither. After the joyous success of his first attempt, Sherlock took every opportunity to strip the pair of them nude and rock against one another until the world exploded behind their eyes.

Except, of course, on days like this, when his black moods fell and his mind tried to eat itself and the thought of touching John made his belly clench. When everything was too much, when he couldn’t breathe and he had to claw desperately at the sheets so he didn’t claw open his gut, where the sick, anxious feeling pooled in the pit of his stomach.

One day Sherlock would push John back and forth too many times and he would get fed up with it. He should go back out and apologize. Explain. Make something up that would fool John (John was so easily fooled) and brush everything all away. Sex always distracted John; it wouldn’t be too difficult, he just had to ignore the horrified panic that caught in his throat at the thought of it and make John forget the whole day. 

Besides, now that there was a door closed between them, Sherlock was equally as miserable without John as he had been with him. _Just stand up and walk back in_ , he thought, _normal people do it all the time. It’s simple._

Sherlock didn’t move.

Hours later he finally slunk from his room and into the darkened hall. John had apparently gone to bed in his own, rarely used room already. Sherlock crept up the stairs, avoiding the third step (he didn’t mind it normally, but in his moods he couldn’t bear to use it) and slipped through John’s door, left invitingly ajar.

He slid into the bed behind John, who now lay awake, still, and tense, and Sherlock even managed to move close enough to feel the warmth of John’s skin before he froze up and couldn’t move any further. 

***

John was sometimes a doctor first and a soldier second, but he’d opened his eyes the moment he’d heard the soft sound of the door pushing open. He’d felt his partner clamber slowly, haltingly, into bed with him, felt the mattress dip with every timid, incremental slide towards him, until Sherlock had stopped about an inch away. 

John Watson had absolutely no idea what to do.

One move and he was certain Sherlock would erupt from the covers like a frightened bird and disappear back into his room, but it went against everything in John to lay still and ignore him. He should have fallen asleep facing the door, at least, or better yet, with his arm outstretched towards it. Something. Instead, all he could do was try and fail not to tense up any further. 

Sherlock wasn’t quite like everyone else. It was why John spent all his time with him, why he dropped everything to follow at his beck and call, why he’d only taken a moment before saying ‘Yeah, alright,’ when Sherlock had suggested that the two of them ‘remove our trousers and commence sexual intercourse’ the first time. And all the subsequent times, really, but it had only been that first time that was even slightly surprising. 

So, really, John couldn’t expect him to behave like a everyone else in a relationship, either, and he was fine with that. Hell, he wasn’t certain what their relationship even _was_ , really, and it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t change them, wouldn’t change Sherlock, even if he could. And while the ‘black moods’ were upsetting, while they were infuriating, it was clearly worse for the detective. 

It still really, really hurt, though.

***

Sherlock inhaled deeply, reached forward, and hooked his pinkie on the waistband of John’s pyjamas.

John started, and Sherlock tensed, stomach fluttering. Slowly, gradually, the tension drained out of the doctor, and they both let out the breath they’d been holding. John moved gently, as though reaching for a wild animal, and spread his hand over his hip. 

One finger rested over Sherlock’s. The detective sighed softly, and John smiled, and they both lay there silently until they fell asleep.


End file.
